Digital Commons Network^™

Powercube: Design And Development Of A 100 W Origami-Inspired Deployable Solar Array For Nanosatellites, Antonio Pedivellano, Thomas Sinn, Ambre Raharijaona, Michael Kringer, Joram Gruber, Thomas Lund, Alexander Titz, Joachim Schmidt, Diego Garcia, Daria Stepanova, Tim Kubera, Stefan Titze, Mathias Hartmann, Bailey Leona Garrett, Callan Whitney, Pauline Faure

Small Satellite Conference

The rapid growth of the capabilities of small satellites have sparked the need for high-power deployable solar arrays. PowerCube addresses this need by proposing a unique solution that can generate up to 100W from a 1U stowed volume. At the core of this design is an innovative origami-inspired architecture, combined with advanced dual-matrix composite materials, to achieve excellent packaging efficiency and self-deployment capabilities. This paper provides an overview of the design of the system and presents the key analyses and breadboarding activities that supported its development. The next milestones in the ESA-funded PowerCube project are discussed, focusing on its qualification …

Itasat-2 Mission Overview, Luís Eduardo Vergueiro Loures Da Costa, Tiago Matos, Lidia Hissae Shibuya Sato, Ana Carolina Jeronymo, Victoria De Souza Rodrigues, Thadeu De Carvalho

Small Satellite Conference

The ITASAT-2 project is part of a progressive development of CubeSat space missions at the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA). Focused simultaneously on space weather and on the development of new technological solutions, the ITASAT-2 mission is based on the previous developments of the ITASAT-1 and SPORT missions. Consisting of three 12U CubeSats in a formation flight, the mission expands on the study of ionospheric plasma movements and density, small-scale ionospheric structures, magnetic field, and radiation environment. On the development of technological solutions, the mission proposes to test a baseline option at LEO to understand the influence of ionospheric phenomena …

Binar Space Program: Mission Two Payloads And Operations Plan, Stuart Buchan, Fergus Downey, Benjamin Hartig, Daniel Busan, Jacob Cook, Chelsea Tay, Kyle Mcmullan, Tristan Ward, Robert Howie, Phil Bland, Jonathan Paxman

Small Satellite Conference

The second mission of Western Australia’s Binar Space Program consists of three 1U CubeSats targeting a 2023 launch. Aiming to improve the platform for future missions, the primary purpose of Binar 2, 3 and 4 is on-orbit testing of radiation shielding alloys developed by CSIRO. In this first-of-its-kind experiment, all three simultaneously deployed Binar spacecraft will contain radiation sensing payloads to assess the efficacy of various compositions of Australian made radiation shielding alloys. Alongside this, hardware changes to the Binar platform are discussed, including deployable solar arrays, additional communications solutions, and a removable payload bay. The Iridium network will be …

Update On The Cubesat Program Of The National Science Foundation, Mangala Sharma

Small Satellite Conference

Since 2008, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided grant funding for over a dozen university-led cubesat missions for scientific research and STEM education. The aims of the NSF cubesat program are to advance observations for space weather, atmospheric and geospace sciences as well as technology development in aerospace engineering and radiocommunications, and to provide “out of this world” leadership opportunities for university students in space missions. This presentation by the NSF Program Director managing the cubesat portfolio will provide an update on the NSF cubesat program.

Ernst: Demonstrating Advanced Infrared Detection From A 12u Cubesat, Martin Schimmerohn, Clemens Horch, Stephan Busch, Noah Ledford, Konstantin Schäfer, Thorsten Maue, Mike Weber, Konstantin Kappe, Frank Schäfer, Caroline Schweitzer, Stefan K. Höffgen, Andreas Paape

Small Satellite Conference

The ERNST mission will demonstrate complex infrared detection capabilities using a 12U CubeSat platform. ERNST’s main payload is an advanced cryogenically-cooled infrared imager that implicates demanding requirements in terms of power demand, heat dissipation, and vibration response for a nanosatellite. The optical bench that integrates optics, a filter-wheel for switching between spectral bands, and the detector-cooler system has been additively designed and manufactured, giving it a bionic appearance and combined with a highly efficient radiator. An onboard radiation monitor and a COTS camera complete the mission payloads. The ERNST 12U platform is based on high-performance CubeSat subsystems for avionics, UHF, …

Ut Prosat-1: A Platform For Testing Lightweight Deployable Composite Structures, Derick Whited, Nick Angle, Gustavo Gargioni, Richard F. Gibbons Iii, Rob Engebretson, Sheyda Davaria, Samantha Kenyon, Jonathan Black

Small Satellite Conference

This paper details the mission, challenges during the design process, and lessons learned from the development of an upcoming 3U cubesat from Virginia Tech dubbed Ut ProSat-1, scheduled to launch in 2023 on NG-19. This student-designed, -built, and -operated flight is a follow-on from the VT ThickSat launch in February 2021, incorporating lessons learned and upgrading specific experiments. The mission science goal is to demonstrate the reusability of lightweight deployable space structures for solar sails, antennas, and other extended components as well as characterizing the dynamic properties of the deployed structure while in space. In addition, the team has set …

Rapid Development Of Low-Cost 1/2u Adaptive Optics Testbed, Ariel Sandberg, Albert Thieu, Anil Mankame, Zachary Palmer, Joel Kiers, Mark Wilder, Lulu Liu

Small Satellite Conference

We present the development of the low-cost, rapid development 1/2U AMS Beacon CubeSat payload, with focus on design architecture and risk reduction of the system. The AMS Beacon payload (Beacon) will be integrated into the Agile MicroSat (AMS) 6U CubeSat platform developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory and will serve as a test platform for high-angle-rate adaptive optics (AO) on orbital targets. The payload will contain a high-intensity laser to provide point-source phase reference for ground-based AO development and test, a photodiode for measurement of received optical power, and a retroreflector for simulating passive object reflectance. The system utilizes commercial-off-theshelf (COTS) …

Satellite For Estimating Aquatic Salinity And Temperature (Seasalt) - A Scientific Overview, Sean Mccarthy, Viviane Menezes, Paul Fucile, Kerri Cahoy, Mary Dahl, Albert Thieu, Cadence Payne, Charles Lindsay, Shreeyam Kacker

Small Satellite Conference

SEASALT is a small satellite mission designed to explore the estimation of salinity in coastal environments using ocean color. A SEASALT constellation would fill the coastal gap by providing coastal SSS observations with much higher spatial resolution (30m) and much shorter revisit times (less than 1 day) on a global scale. Planet’s nanosatellites currently provide daily monitoring of the earth’s surface, as well as coastal locations, at 3-meter resolution. However, they do not have the required bands needed in the near infrared (NIR) for atmospheric correction (they only possess 1 NIR band), thus making atmospheric correction over water very challenging. …

Adapting On Orbit: Conclusions Of The Stp-H6 Spacecraft Supercomputing For Image And Video Processing Experiment, Evan W. Gretok, Seth Roffe, Antony Gillette, Alan D. George, Sebastian Sabogal, Theodore Schwarz

Small Satellite Conference

Spacecraft Supercomputing for Image and Video Processing (SSIVP) was a payload aboard the Department of Defense Space Test Program – Houston 6 pallet deployed on the International Space Station. SSIVP was designed and constructed by graduate students at the NSF Center for Space, High-Performance, and Resilient Computing (SHREC) at the University of Pittsburgh. The primary objective of this experiment was to evaluate resilient- and parallel-computing capabilities in a small-satellite form factor. Five flight computers, each combining radiation-tolerant and commercial-off-the-shelf technologies, were networked by high-speed interconnects, enabling a reliable space-supercomputing paradigm. Image-processing and computer-vision experiments were conducted on Earth-observation imagery acquired …

Development Of Cubesat Spacecraft-To-Spacecraft Optical Link Detection Chain For The Click B/C Mission, Danielle E. Coogan, Joseph Conroy, Myles Clark, John W. Conklin, Hannah Tomio, William Kammerer, Peter Grenfell, Ondrej Čierny, Charles Lindsay, Maddie Garcia, Paul Serra, Kerri Cahoy, Jan Stupl, David Mayer, John Hanson

Small Satellite Conference

The growing interest in and expanding applications of small satellite constellation networks necessitates effective and reliable high-bandwidth communication between spacecraft. The applications of these constellations (such as navigation or imaging) rely on the precise measurement of timing offset between the spacecraft in the constellation. The CubeSat Laser Infrared CrosslinK (CLICK) mission is being developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Florida (UF), and NASA Ames Research Center. The second phase of the mission (CLICK-B/C) will demonstrate a crosslink between two CubeSats (B and C) that each host a < 2U laser communication payload. The terminals will demonstrate full-duplex spacecraft-to-spacecraft communications and ranging capability using commercial components. As part of the mission, CLICK will demonstrate two-way time-transfer for clock synchronization and data transfer at a minimum rate of 20 Mbps over separation distances ranging from 25 km to 580 km. The payloads of CLICK B and C include a receiver chain with a custom photodetector board, a Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC), a Microchip Chip-Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC), and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The payloads can measure internal propagation delays of the transmitter and the receiver, and cancel environmental effects impacting timing accuracy. The photodetector board is 2.5 cm x 2.5 cm and includes an avalanche photodiode (APD) and variable-gain amplifiers through which the detected signal is conditioned for the TDC to be time-stamped. This design has been developed from the UF and NASA Ames CubeSat Handling Of Multisystem Precision Time Transfer (CHOMPTT) project and associated MOCT (Miniature Optical Communication Transceiver) demonstration. The TDC samples the signal at four points: twice on the rising edge at set thresholds, and twice at the falling edge at those same thresholds. These four time-offset samples are sent to the FPGA, which combines the measurements for a reported timestamp of the detected laser pulse. These timestamps can then be used in a pulse-position modulation (PPM) demodulation scheme to receive data at up to 50 Mbps, to calculate range down to 10 cm, and for precision time-transfer with < 200 ps resolution. In this paper, we will discuss the designed capabilities and noise performance of the CLICK TDC-based optical receiver chain.

Developing Machine Learning Models For Space Based Edge Ai Platforms, James Murphy, John E. Ward, Brian Mac Namee

Small Satellite Conference

On September 3rd 2020, one of the first small satellites equipped with Edge AI hardware was launched. The inclusion of a UB0100 board on PhiSat-1 enabled the use of deep neural networks to provide real-time image analysis on-board an Earth Observation satellite. The primary benefit of this was a 90% reduction in downlink data as the system only transmitted non-cloudy, and thus usable, data. PhiSat-1 and missions like it have started the revolution of satellite-based machine learning, leading ESA and other space agencies to further explore the in-situ deployment of machine-learning models. Other applications that can benefit from on-board space-based …

Co-Operating Systems: A Technical Overview Of Multiple Onboard Operating Systems, Cameron Bonesteel, Evan Tichenor, Eric Miller, Andres Rodriguez

Small Satellite Conference

The Multiview Onboard Computational Imager (MOCI) built by the University of Georgia’s Small Satellite Research Lab (SSRL) will be one of the first small satellites to include a small form factor graphics processing unit (GPU), the NVIDIA TX2i, in its design and therefore includes three onboard computers that will need to coordinate and interchange data to successfully complete the mission. The Onboard Computer (OBC), standard for most satellite systems, will coordinate most system controls. The GPU serves as the onboard payload manager and bulk data processor and coordinates with the attitude determination and control system (ADCS) to collect all necessary …

New Results And Lessons Learned From The Move-Ii And Move-Iib Cubesats, Lucien Volk, Rosalinde Borrek, Nicolas Zischka, Johannes Koch, Isha Sharma, Matteo Nardini, Linda Holl, Simon Gruber, Florian Schummer, Jonis Kiesbye, David Messmann, Martin Lülf

Small Satellite Conference

This paper covers the operations and lessons learned for the MOVE-II and MOVE-IIb satellites. Both are 1U CubeSats, with their purpose being hands-on education for students of all technical fields related to aerospace. The hardware of the spacecraft consists of a commercial on-board computer and an electrical power system, while all other systems, including the software, were designed by the student team. The MOVE-II CubeSat was successfully launched on December 3rd, 2018 and remains active in orbit to this day with almost daily commanding. The operations were full of surprises that pre-launch simulations did not foresee. With on-orbit data, we …

The Maker's Cubesat: Increasing Student-Lab Capabilities In The Design, Integration & Test Of The Alpha Cubesat, Joshua Umansky-Castro, Yaw Tung Tan, Eleanor Glenn, Lauren Greenhill, Jenny Wen, Mason Peck, Andrew Filo, Alex Burke

Small Satellite Conference

Alpha is a 1U CubeSat developed at Cornell University that deploys a ChipSat-equipped free-flying light sail into LEO. While the payload is rather unique, the spacecraft that deploys it is designed to be adaptable and scalable to future student-led missions. Technology demonstrations include a 3D-printed chassis, entirely commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronics, an Iridium modem that bypasses the need for ground-station hardware, and magnetorquer-only spin-stabilization and pointing. This paper details the driving factors behind Alpha’s novel architecture with a focus on the affordable methods developed for design verification and optimization. Drawing inspiration from the maker community, the lab acquired a suite …

Project Poke: Developing A Stem Community To Offset Learning Loss Amidst Covid Pandemic Through Aerospace Technologies Project-Based Learning In Hawaii's K-12 Classrooms, Kelly Ngo, Aksel Sloan, Christopher Amendola, Luke Clements, Amber Imai-Hong, Frances Zhu

Small Satellite Conference

Project POKE (Providing an Opportunity for the Keiki in Engineering) is a unique opportunity for middle and high school keiki (‘children’ in Hawaiian) in Hawaii to gain hands-on aerospace experience through interaction with a 1U CubeSat kit. The focus of the project is to build a STEM community based on collaboration and project-based learning to offset learning loss amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The Project POKE program includes an educator course, CubeSat kit, collaborative digital space, open-ended design challenge, and symposium. Middle and high school teachers concurrently participate in the program’s educator course and meet with their students to teach the …

Settler-On-Settler Violence: Ritual Protocols In Youtube Street Fight Videos - Paper 1, Kelly Menzel, Tyson Yunkaporta

Journal of Indigenous Research

This is part one of a series of two papers exploring a project that was conducted by two Australian Aboriginal researchers, one male and one female, and might be described as ‘reverse anthropology’, in the same way that people sometimes refer to positive discrimination as ‘reverse racism’. But we would just call it anthropology; a tidal river is still a river when it flows back the other way. The project could hardly be acknowledged as anthropology though, as it was based on Indigenous methods of inquiry that do not yet belong to a formal discipline. Initially the goal was to …

Indigenous Americans Became Red: Racism As Justification For Exploitation Of Native Americans, Robert V. Dodge

Journal of Indigenous Research

This article presents how an admixture of humans first arrived in the western world during the last Ice Age and spread throughout both continents, developing more complex cultures and agriculture, then civilizations. The arrival of Columbus began colonization by white European countries, justified by bringing the indigenous population Christianity and European civilization. Native people were dehumanized by white settlers out of greed for their land, which was said to have been used unproductively. A contention of early British colonists was that Indians were born white but their uncivilized life prevented them from remaining so, giving them a range of hues. …

Spectral Ocean Color (Spoc): Lessons Learned From The University Of Georgia Small Satellite Research Laboratory's First Satellite, Sydney Whilden, Deepak Mishra, David L. Cotten, Nicholas Neel

Small Satellite Conference

In October 2020, the University of Georgia Small Satellite Research Laboratory launched its first CubeSat, a 3U Earth-observation mission designed to collect multispectral data from Georgia’s coastal environments for UGA’s Center for Geospatial Research to make recommendations on environmental conservation, care, and use. SPOC successfully detumbled, but after approximately a month in orbit, a coronal mass ejection (we speculate) caused us to lose contact. Despite our disappointment at the loss of SPOC, we are leveraging the lessons learned for our upcoming missions. These lessons can be categorized in four principal areas: software (flight and payload), mission operations, testing, and educational …

The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment: The First Dedicated Ultraviolet Exoplanet Mission, Arika Egan, Kevin France, Nicholas Nell, Nicholas Decicco, Ambily Suresh, Rick Kohnert, Brian T. Fleming, Stefan Ulrich

Small Satellite Conference

The past few years of space mission development have seen an increase in the use of small satellites as platforms for dedicated astrophysical research; they offer unique capabilities for time-domain science and complementary advantages over large shared resource facilities like the Hubble Space Telescope, including: (1) low cost and relatively quick development timelines; (2) observing strategies dedicated to niche but important science questions; and (3) ample opportunity for students and early career scientists and engineers to be involved on the front lines of space mission development. The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) is a NASA-supported 6U CubeSat assembled …

Methods For Data-Centric Small Satellite Anomaly Detection And Fault Prediction, Joseph Melville, Joel B. Harley, Michael Lopez, Michael Crabtree, Seth Lacy

Small Satellite Conference

Autonomy can increase reaction speed, flexibility, and accuracy of satellite operations, especially in uncertain environments caused by delayed communication and/or adversarial conditions. An increased focus on small satellites makes the development of satellite autonomy even more salient, given fewer operators per satellite.

Anomaly detection automates satellite health monitoring, ensuring it functions as designed. This is typically achieved using various forms of recurrent neural networks (RNN). While many of these model-based works show promise, a majority use simulated data or assume lossless communication. In contrast, raw satellite telemetry often has dropped packets, sampling frequency mismatches, noise from electrical systems and radiation, …

Autonomous System-Level Fault Diagnosis In Satellites Using Housekeeping Telemetry, Evana Gizzi, Hayley Owens, Nicholas Pellegrino, Christopher Trombley, James Marshall, Jivko Sinapov

Small Satellite Conference

To continue the growing success of scientific discovery through deep space exploration, missions need to be able to be able to travel further and operate more efficiently than ever before. To ensure resilience in this capability, on-board autonomous fault mitigation methods must be developed and matured. To this end, we present a system for cross-subsystem fault diagnosis of satellites using spacecraft telemetry. Our system leverages a combination of Kalman Filters, Autoencoders, and Causality algorithms. We test our system for accuracy against three data sets of varying complexity levels, along with baseline testing. Additionally, we perform an ablation study to evaluate …

Tele-Intervention Resources, Pam Dawson M.Ed., Rachel Glade Ph.D.

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

The restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic forced many early intervention (EI) providers and families to adopt an emergency virtual service delivery model. The exigent nature of the pandemic necessitated the rapid transition to virtual early intervention, often without the benefit of training and guidance for both providers and caregivers regarding the use of virtual platforms, objectives, procedures, and the overall dynamics of the virtual session. As restrictions begin to ease and in-person home visits once again become possible, many providers and caregivers may be wondering how tele-intervention (TI) services might fit in ongoing early intervention for children who are deaf …

Achieving Successful Outcomes In A Teleintervention Program, K. Todd Houston, Lauri Nelson, Brianna Job

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

For well over a decade, family-centered early intervention services have been delivered through models of teleintervention (TI) to children who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) and their families. Ongoing outcome data continue to demonstrate the viability, effectiveness, and positive impacts these services provide to both the service providers and the families served. However, to establish a successful TI program, careful planning is required, and barriers and potential roadblocks must be reduced or eliminated. When these challenges are adequately addressed, TI programs are more likely to achieve its primary goal of delivering appropriate family-centered early intervention.

Training The Next Generation Of Practitioners In Early Intervention And Telepractice: Three University Models, K. Todd Houston, Lauri Nelson, Kristina Blaiser

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to shape the provision of family-centered early intervention services for children who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing and their families. In programs, schools, and centers, direct in-person contact with families have been significantly curtailed as a means to limit the exposure to and spead of the virus. Emergency remote learning has lead to an increase in telepractice, also referred to as teleintervention, as the designated model of service provision. Most early interventionists, speech-language pathologists, and teachers of the Deaf were not sufficiently trained to suddenly implement emergency remote teaching or telepractice services, but service providers had no …

Telepractice-Based Assessment Of Children Who Are Deaf/Hard-Of-Hearing: Focus On Family-Centered Practice, Kristina M. Blaiser, Lauri Nelson, K. Todd Houston

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Ongoing assessment and progress monitoring is considered best practice to serve children who are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) yet logistics related to provider shortages, distances between families, and illness make regular assessment difficult if not impossible. In the last ten years, telepractice has become a more commonly used service delivery model for serving children who are DHH and their families, however, many providers lack the training needed to adequately assess this population (Behl & Kahn, 2015). With explicit planning of the assessments and tools needed on both sides of the camera, providers can create a shared framework to collect the information needed …

A Review Of Current Pediatric Tele-Audiology Ehealth Platforms, Alex Meibos

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify current pediatric tele-audiology hearing technology platforms for young children with hearing loss and their families.

Method: An exploratory, descriptive design was used to evaluate features of available pediatric tele-audiology platforms for parents and audiologists to implement for young children. The study explored internet resources including hearing industry websites, for information related to specific eHealth platform features designed to support pediatric hearing devices currently available to audiologists and families.

Results: Of the websites reviewed, only four major technology companies were found to have pediatric tele-audiology ready platforms designed to support young children …

Parents’ Perspectives About Tele-Intervention Services For Their Children Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing, Lauri H. Nelson, Amanda M. Rudge, Pamela Dawson, Demi Culianos, Cheryl Broekelmann, Arlene Stredler-Brown

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Purpose: In the first of a two-part survey series, this cross-sectional survey study explored parent perceptions of tele-intervention (TI) services for their young children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Using Likert rating scales, the survey queried parent confidence in understanding their child’s language development, perceptions of the coaching and support they received, the parent-professional partnership, and overall views and recommendations. Data were collected March-May 2020, not realizing the survey release would coincide with the Covid-19 pandemic and the influx of unexpected virtual services. For this reason, data were stratified between those who had received TI services for more …

Working With Families Of Young Children Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing Through Tele-Intervention, Amanda M. Rudge Phd, Betsy Moog Brooks Edd, Arlene Stredler-Brown Phd

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Tele-intervention services have been utilized for many years to serve families of young children, in addition to or in lieu of traditional in-person intervention services. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic cultivated urgent dependence on access to effective services via a distance connection. As such, the need for information, guidance, and resources related to tele-intervention as a primary service model has increased. This article serves as the introduction to a monographic series aiming to describe practices, circumstances, and perceptions surrounding tele-intervention services for families of children aged birth to five who are deaf or hard of hearing. Topics include: (a) a brief …

The Journal Of Early Hearing Detection And Intervention: Volume 7 Issue 2, Pages 1-73

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

No abstract provided.

Heavy Metal Levels And Sources In Suspended Particulate Matters Of The Glacier Watersheds In Northeast Tibetan Plateau, Rui Wu, Zhiwen Dong, Xiping Cheng, Janice Brahney, Xiaoyu Jiao, Lihua Wu

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

This study collected summer meltwater runoff samples from several glacier watersheds of the northeast Tibetan Plateau during June-July 2017, and measured the concentrations of 17 trace elements (Li, Be, Sc, V, Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Rb, Mo, Cd, In, Sb, Cs, Ba) in meltwater suspended particulate matter (SPM), in order to reveal the elemental concentration, spatial distribution, and water quality in remote glacier watershed under regional anthropogenic activities. Results showed that, the concentration of heavy metal elements was relatively high in Yuzhufeng Glacier basin, ranging from 0.57 μg/L (In) to 1,551.6 μg/L (Ba), whereas in Qiyi Glacier basin …